Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
Business process reengineering (BPR) is the radical redesign of a business process to achieve a dramatic improvement in cost, quality, speed or service. Instead of adjusting the process you have, BPR starts from a blank page and asks why the process exists, what outcome it should deliver and which steps are no longer needed.
The approach is associated with Michael Hammer. That’s the difference from ordinary process improvement, which optimizes the process you have – BPR asks whether you should have it in this shape at all. It tends to come up during major digital transformation, a merger, or when customer expectations have shifted enough that incremental fixes can’t close the gap.
It also carries more risk than incremental change, since redesigning roles, systems, and workflows at the same time requires strong sponsorship and real change management – not just a new process diagram.
See when to reengineer versus when to optimize incrementally.
Related terms
Process improvement · Change management · Business process transformation